Failed Experiment
by Raeni12345
Summary: "How did you get your sledgehammer?" Alice had thought it was an innocent enough question. Apparently not.     ... Rated T for potentially disturbing content.


They sat on the couch, limbs intertwined, content and enjoying the feel of the other. It was getting late, but neither of them wanted the evening to end. They were mostly quiet, a comfortable quiet, punctuated by gentle touches. Occasionally one broke the silence to ask a question – something about Earth or Wonderland, or about the other's past.

Alice gazed down at Hatter's right hand, resting on her thigh, and lightly traced designs on it with her fingernail. His skin was so soft, but she knew that underneath the skin was a deadly strength. She found herself contemplating his "sledgehammer" (as she had heard several people in Wonderland call it). No one else she had met in Wonderland had a superpower, unless she could consider Charlie's uncanny ability to find people using the "black arts" one.

"Hatter, can I ask you something?" She traced her thumb up his.

"Mmm, anything love, you know that," he murmured back softly, almost drowsily.

"How did you get your sledgehammer?"

She felt the change immediately. His whole body stiffened, and she could feel his heart start racing through his shirt. His easy, dimpled smile disappeared and his eyes went dark.

Alice sat up slightly, caught off guard by the sudden shift in mood. She had thought it was an innocent enough question. Apparently not. "What's wrong?"

Hatter chewed on his bottom lip and looked at the floor. "Not much of a bedtime story, that," he forced out finally, He raised his eyes to meet hers, and she could see a touch of agony in their depths.

The silence was long, and not the comfortable kind that they had been sharing moments earlier. She had just opened her mouth to say something, anything to break the silence when he finally spoke again.

"I... I didn't always have it, you know." He stared down at his hand, flexing it for a moment. "It was the scientists that did this to me. I was a failed experiment, I suppose."

Alice's brow creased as she looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"They've been doing it for a long time, you know, using their machines on people. It wasn't always just about the emotion teas. Wasn't always just people from your world either. They used Wonderlanders too, not for tea, but for lots of other things."

He paused, searching Alice's face, wondering if he was making any sense. The growing horror in Alice's eyes gave him that answer.

He pulled himself up off the couch, pacing a bit. He pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. "You sure you want to hear this?"

Alice nodded mutely, her eyes not leaving his face. He sat down on the edge of the coffee table and faced her.

"The scientists, they were trying to make us into weapons." He clenched his eyes shut.

He could see it all again. The too-bright naked bulbs. The ominous looking steel machines. The syringes filled with god-knows-what.

"I was fifteen when they took us. Was living on the streets. They just swooped in with the scarabs and collected us, took us away."

_The smell. Blood and disinfectant. He was dragged in by his hair, thrown onto a table and tied down. Attached to the machine by his neck and his arms, the sensors biting into his skin. Stabbed in the abdomen with a syringe. His body felt like it was on fire._

"They did things to us. Operated on us. Injected us with drugs. Messed with our minds."

_Lying on the cold cement floor, bleeding and violently ill. Thinking he was going to die. Wondering if that was such a bad thing. Shadows moving in the cell around him. People once, now shells. Already there are far fewer of them. Hands helping him, pulling him onto a cot. The eyes of a friend, his only friend._

"A lot of the people died. Others were twisted so they weren't even themselves anymore."

_The eyes had changed. He could tell they had twisted his soul. His only friend, no longer a friend, now a cold-blooded killer. "What did they do to you?"_

"Me, I ended up with a really strong arm."

_His right arm, tingling and burning from his elbow to his fingertips as they untied him. His right wrist, moving on its own, striking hard into the face of the nearest guard. He dropped and never moved again. _

_Grabbed by the right shoulder, restrained again. No strength there, only in his lower arm._

"They kept trying, trying to make the rest of me do the same as my arm. Operated on me, injected me, nearly killed me, but it never happened."

_Back on the cold cement floor, vomiting bile, no one to help him up. They were going to kill him, mess with him until his body was destroyed._

"A few of us escaped in the end. But most didn't."

_Resistance fighters. The sound of fighting echoing through the hallway, through the door. He broke the metal door with a single swing of his fist. They saved six people. Only six._

Hatter opened his eyes, unclenched his fist. His face was wet with tears and sweat and he was trembling. He looked over at Alice. She was staring at him, unmasked horror written on her face, tears streaming from her blue eyes.

He stood, to move toward her, and she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around him. The warmth of her body against his grounded him, bringing him fully back to the present, to where he was safe, and with Alice, and in her world.

Finally, Alice pulled away slightly, and pulled Hatter down onto the couch. "I had no idea, Hatter. I'm so sorry. I would never have made you tell me." Her blue eyes swam again.

"It was a long time ago," he said, trying to reassure her, although his voice was still thick with emotion. "I can't change how it happened, but having a right hook like mine, it's come in handy a few times since, 'specially after you came along." He managed a weak smile.

Alice smiled back at him, tears still on her cheeks. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked finally.

"Yeah," he said, laughing shakily. "Tho' I'm gonna have nightmares." He shuddered and pulled Alice tightly against his chest. "Stay with me tonight?"

**Bit of a short one, and hard to write. Please review (constructive criticism always welcome - very welcome).  
**

**Just an idea I came up with to explain how Hatter's right hook came to be.  
**


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